Curve Ball: Baseball, Statistics, and the Role of Chance in the Game

by Jim Albert

. . . a smart and energetic collection of essays on baseball statistics. Curve Ball doesn't play misty-eyed homage to baseball's traditions and conventional wisdoms. . . . This is great stuff. . . . Curve Ball makes clear how pleasurable [stats] can be, and arguably how important, to view the great American game with real precision" - The Wall Street Journal " 4.5 out of 5. Must own" - Baseballnotebook.com "In [Curve Ball] Albert & Bennett explain the game in ways the conventional press - even titans such as Bill James - cannot" - Baseball America [The book] illustrates how statistical reasoning can be useful in teasing out the role of chance from performance in baseball to better assess ability. . . . Curve Ball represents another advance in the genre of baseball and statistics books" - Journal of the American Statistical Association There is a fascination among baseball fans and the media to collect data on every imaginable event during a baseball game and to use these data to try to understand characteristics of the game. But patterns in baseball data are difficult to detect due to the inherent chance variation that is present. This book addresses a number of questions that are of interest to many baseball fans - including how to rate players, predict the outcome of a game or the attainment of an attainment, make sense of situational data, and decide the most valuable players in the World Series. Curve Ball is directed to a general audience and does not assume that the reader has any prior background in probability or statistics, although knowledge of high school algebra will be helpful.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Mathematics, Nonfiction

428 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Jim Albert is a Distinguished University Professor of Statistics at Bowling Green State University. His research interests include Bayesian modeling and applications of statistical thinking in sports. He has authored or coauthored several books including Ordinal Data Modeling, Bayesian Computation with R, and Workshop Statistics: Discovery with Data, A Bayesian Approach.

Reviews

[Jimmy Tarlau · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like statistics and I like baseball and know something about both subjects but this book is a stretch for most people who are not really into statistics. The topics are interesting: does the best team really win, what is a streaky hitter, are there such things as clutch hitters, and which playeres are the most important for the team. I'm not sure I learned a lot except to understand about how baseball stasticians work on the subject. A lot of what you learn is that the random chance is that probably the best team won't win a world series. One strange chapter had to do with Sammy Sosa and his probability of hitting a home run and how many home runs he would hit in the future based on what he has done in the past.....oh oh - maybe the probability had to do with steroids. Interesting but not for everyone.

[Tim Basuino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not for the faint of heart, "Curve Ball..." looks at baseball from a probability-calculating standpoint. One of its best points is that what may be interpreted as an increase/decrease in skills may in fact be random fluctuation, a.k.a. "Noise". This could almost be a college textbook (and it certainly would have been a lot more interesting than some of the material I had to work with way back when).

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

Doesn't really add anything to the statistical body of knowledge about baseball. The only redeeming feature is a discussion of tabletop baseball games and their use of probability and relative realism.

[Chris Aldrich · Rating 4 out of 5]

The original textbook for sabremetrics.